Answer: If you are a professional who helps families plan for or deal with ANY of their elder care matters, then you owe it to yourself to be listed on America's #1 online source for "Elder Care Experts"….
ElderCareMatters.com
ElderCareMatters.com is where you will find more than 2,000 competent, caring elder care experts located across America, including:
-
Elder Law Attorneys
-
Estate Planning Advisors
-
Financial Planners
-
Investment Advisors
-
Geriatric Care Managers
-
Insurance Professionals
-
Life Care Planners
-
Professional Organizers
-
Reverse Mortgage Lenders
-
Senior Move Managers
-
Senior Real Estate Professionals
-
Tax Advisors
-
Aging in Place Professionals
-
Daily Money Managers
-
And other elder care experts with long and successful careers working with seniors and their families
This is also where you will find some of America's best:
-
Assisted Living Communities
-
Alzheimer's / Memory Care Communities
-
Continuing Care Retirement Communities
-
Home Care Agencies
Together, we provide families across America with:
-
Unparalleled professional expertise
-
Up-to-date elder care information & answers to your elder care questions
-
Competent, caring assistance with a wide range of elder care services
So if you are a competent, caring elder care professional who helps families with ANY of their elder care matters, then request today an Application for Membership in the national ElderCare Matters Alliance and get listed on ElderCareMatters.com - America's #1 source for "Elder Care Experts" plus information and answers about a wide range of elder care matters.
Phillip G. Sanders, MBA, MSHA, CPA
Founder & CEO
ElderCare Matters, LLC
ElderCareMatters.com
Answer: Assuming you have a valid financial or general power of attorney that complies with state law, you need to check the document. When does the document say the power is effective? Some are effective immediately upon signing it. In that case, you can use the power right now. She may, however, try to revoke it.
Most powers of attorney, however, are considered “springing.” That means the power of attorney is effective upon some triggering event, usually incapacity. The document should say how incapacity will be determined. For example, some say that the principal (the person who signed the power of attorney) must be determined to be incapacitated by two physicians. If such a requirement is in the document, then you will need written statements from the physicians stating that she cannot manage her financial affairs. Those statements should be kept with the power of attorney and made a part of it.
Remember that financial institutions may not accept the power of attorney. Some will not accept a power that is a certain number of years old. Others will look for certain clauses that may or may not me in your document. And some financial institutions seem to give people a hard time just because. It is very difficult to try to force a financial institution to accept a power of attorney.
If your power of attorney turns out to be ineffective for whatever reason, you may need to petition the court for a conservatorship.
Ronald Zack, Esq.
Tucson, Arizona
520-331-3232
www.TucsonEstatePlanning.com
Answer: It is my pleasure to provide you with the following list of the 87 different elder care services that are currently provided by the members of the national ElderCare Matters Alliance on ElderCareMatters.com:
- Accounting Services
- Adult Day Care
- Advance Medical Directives
- Aging in Place Services
- Alzheimer's / Memory Care Communities
- Annuities
- Arbitration
- Asset Protection Planning
- Assisted Living Communities
- Assisted Living Referral Services
- Bankruptcy
- Bill Paying
- Budgeting
- Caregiving Education
- Companion Care
- Conservatorship
- Consumer Law
- Continuing Care Retirement Communities
- Cremation Services
- Crisis Intervention
- Daily Money Management
- Dementia Care
- Disability Income Insurance
- Disability Planning
- Elder Abuse Litigation Services
- Elder Law
- ElderCare Planning
- Estate Administration
- Estate Liquidation
- Estate Planning
- Family Law
- Financial Planning
- Funeral Services
- Geriatric Care Management
- Guardianship
- Health Insurance
- Hoarding Clean Up and Coaching Services
- Home Care
- Home Downsizing Services
- Home Health Care
- Home Modifications
- Hospice Care
- Independent Living Communities
- Investment Services
- Life Care Planning
- Life Insurance
- Litigation
- Long Term Care Insurance
- Long Term Care Planning
- Medicaid Planning
- Medical Services
- Medical Alert Systems
- Medical Claims Processing
- Medical Equipment & Supplies
- Medical Malpractice Litigation
- Medicare Consulting
- Medicare Supplemental Insurance
- Medication Management Services
- Moving Services
- Nursing Homes
- Personal Finance
- Powers of Attorney
- Probate
- Professional Organizing
- Public / Non-Profit Resources
- Real Estate Services
- Rehabilitation Services
- Residential Psychiatric Care
- Respite Care
- Retirement Planning
- Reverse Mortgages
- Securities Arbitration & Litigation Services
- Senior Housing
- Senior Move Management
- Senior Move Planning
- Senior Relocation Services
- Social Security Disability Services
- Special Needs Planning
- Tax Law
- Tax Planning
- Tax Preparation
- Transportation Services
- Trustee / Fiduciary Services
- Trusts
- VA Benefits
- Wills
- Wound Care
The goal of ElderCareMatters.com is to provide families across America with the help they need to plan for and deal with their elder care matters. Let us know if there are other elder care services that you would like to have us list on ElderCareMatters.com – America's #1 source for Elder Care Experts plus information & answers about a wide range of elder care matters.
Phillip G. Sanders, MBA, MSHA, CPA
Founder & CEO, ElderCare Matters, LLC
ElderCareMatters.com
1-877-379-4500
Answer: Elder financial abuse is any practice or conduct that misuses, takes or conceals a vulnerable elder’s funds, property or assets. Elder financial abuse includes any type of investment fraud that uses misrepresentation, deception, trickery, false pretence, or dishonest act to the financial detriment of a senior.
A fiduciary duty is an affirmation obligation imposed on one person to act in the best interest of another person. Whether or not a fiduciary duty is owed to an elderly client depends on the law of the state where the senior resides. In some states like Georgia, stockbrokers owe fiduciary obligations to their clients but insurance agents and bank officials normally do not. Nonetheless, this does not give an insurance agent or bank official a license to defraud a senior out of his or her money or property and the agent or official can still be sued by the senior for fraud.
Let me know if I can be of further assistance to you.
J. Michael Bishop, JD
Smiley Bishop & Porter, LLP
Atlanta, GA 30338
770-829-3850
Member of the national ElderCare Matters Alliance
Answer: A Ponzi scheme is a phony investment plan where investors are promised high rates of returns on their investment but no real legitimate business operations exist to generate profits or earnings. Instead, early investors are paid from funds put into the scheme by later investors. When the promoter of the scheme can no longer attract new investor money to pay early investors (or he has stolen investor funds to fund his own lifestyle) the scheme collapses.
Ponzi schemes derive their name from criminal financier Charles Ponzi who is credited with creating this fraud back in the 1920s. Charles Ponzi duped thousands of investors through a postage stamp speculation scheme. Ponzi promised to pay investors a 50% return on their investments within 90 days. Ponzi had no legitimate business or investment opportunity in place to generate earnings and used incoming funds from new investors to pay off earlier investors.
Some warning signs associated with Ponzi schemes are:
- Promises of unrealistically high returns with little risk.
- Claims by the promoter that the investment opportunity is extremely complex and usually only available to large overseas institutional investors like foreign banks and insurance companies.
- Requirement by the promoter that investors not discuss the investment with third parties and keep all aspects of the investment confidential.
- Representations by the promoter that investor funds are never at risk and are always held in an escrow account.
- Lack of transparency/refusal of the promoter to disclose to investors the location of investor funds or how the funds have been invested.
- Opportunity to reinvest promised payments at increasingly higher rates of return.
- Inability to pay investors requested withdrawals or refusal to allow investors to cash out their investments.
Let me know if I can be of further assistance to you.
J. Michael Bishop, JD
Smiley Bishop & Porter, LLP
Atlanta, GA 30338
770-829-3850
Member of the national ElderCare Matters Alliance
Answer: A securities brokerage firm and its brokers have a duty to only recommend investments which are suitable for a customer in light of the customer’s objectives and individual circumstances. This is known as the “suitability doctrine.” Specifically, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (“FINRA”) rules state:
"In recommending to a customer the purchase, sale or exchange of any security, a member shall have reasonable grounds for believing that the recommendation is suitable for such customer upon the basis of the facts, if any, disclosed by such customer as to his other security holdings and as to his financial situation and needs."
Where a senior’s life situation dictates a conservative investment approach and a broker recommends high risk investments not designed to preserve the senior’s financial resources, the senior can have a suitability claim against the broker and his or her employer for damages.
It’s likely your mother signed an arbitration agreement when she opened her brokerage account and gave up her right to file her case in court. Therefore, your mother needs to file an arbitration claim to recover her money. Nearly all arbitrations are conducted by arbitrators appointed by FINRA.
Let me know if I can be of further assistance to you.
J. Michael Bishop, JD
Smiley Bishop & Porter, LLP
Atlanta, GA 30338
770-829-3850
Member of the national ElderCare Matters Alliance
Answer: Here are some telltale signs of Financial Elder Abuse:
- Unusual or unexplained expenditures by the senior.
- Large cash withdrawals from the senior's bank account
- Numerous checks being written to a person or company that you do not know
- Wires or asset transfers out of the elder's bank or investment accounts that the senior cannot explain or doesn't want to talk about
- Numerous unexplained credit card charges
- Monthly account balances in the senior's bank or brokerage accounts that have suddenly declined dramatically
- The senior living without certain basic necessities even though he/she should have the money to afford them
- The senior recently lending money to someone you don't know
- Large amounts of money in the senior's investment account suddenly being invested in one product like a deferred variable annuity
From a practical perspective, there are a few simple things you can do to help your mother avoid Financial Elder Abuse:
- Have your mother's bank and brokerage firm send you duplicate copies of her monthly account statements.
- Also, most banks allow their account holders to set up daily email alerts. Ask your mother to let you set up an email alert that sends you the daily balances on her bank accounts.
Let me know if I can be of further assistance to you.
J. Michael Bishop, JD
Smiley Bishop & Porter, LLP
Atlanta, GA 30338
770-829-3850
Member of the national ElderCare Matters Alliance
Answer: This will vary somewhat from state to state. Generally, if the person who executed the power of attorney is legally incompetent, a family member can petition the Court to have a conservator appointed who then would have authority to request an accounting. This requires a doctor to certify that the person is unable to make rational financial judgments and therefore legally incompetent.
If the uncle suspects that there has been financial abuse, most states also have agencies that will investigate the situation. You can call the Elder Affairs department in your state to find out which agencies handle these matters in your state.
To locate other experts in your state who may be able to help you with this elder care matter, go to: www.ElderCareMatters.com/statechapters.htm
Dagmar M. Pollex, Attorney at Law
The Law Offices of Dagmar M. Pollex, P.C.
Braintree, Massachusetts 02184
781-535-6490
Member of the national ElderCare Matters Alliance, Massachusetts chapter
